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[Alex Taylor]

Hi Guys,

I'm new here and looking for some advice on an upcoming event I have.

The event is a small private festival in a castle with a hard cap at 120 people. My role is to provide sound across 3 rooms where it is all DJ's. The event has been running for 3 years now and i'm happy with how the sound has been run for the majority of the events history. However, I have been fighting with the main room in attempts to achieve a good sound were the main party is. It's a small semi-cube like shaped room, made up entirely of concrete, with small alcove's at the rear and two small windows one on side. So the RT60 is incredibly high for it's size and makes any system I put in their sound harsh, un-clear and fatiguing, additionally I get a huge 50 - 60 Hz resonance that destroys the low frequency response. My idea for a solution this year is to partially cover the walls with thick black wool serge material in attempts to reduce as much comb filtering as possible and add some clarity to the sound in the room. I do not have the budget or resources for any form of bass trapping to help combat the low end resonance, but i'm wondering if their is anything sort of processing or sub placement strategies I can try out.

I wanted to ask if any has any experience dealing with doing sound in rooms like this before, and if you could share what strategies worked best for you? 

[Mac Kerr]

Hi Guys,

I'm new here and looking for some advice on an upcoming event I have.

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[Art Welter]

However, I have been fighting with the main room in attempts to achieve a good sound were the main party is. It's a small semi-cube like shaped room, made up entirely of concrete, with small alcove's at the rear and two small windows one on side. So the RT60 is incredibly high for it's size and makes any system I put in their sound harsh, un-clear and fatiguing, additionally I get a huge 50 - 60 Hz resonance that destroys the low frequency response.

Alex,
For small rooms, try multiple subs placed as in this article:
https://mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/

As far as reducing the reflections, inflated balloons can do surprisingly well, though best to have the decorators do the installation...

Art

[Miguel Dahl]

Alex,
For small rooms, try multiple subs placed as in this article:
https://mehlau.net/audio/multisub_geddes/

As far as reducing the reflections, inflated balloons can do surprisingly well, though best to have the decorators do the installation...

Art

Interesting. But I don't see how this actually removes the nulls and some peaks? The long averaging time to me sound "only" like it's averaging the entire room, but the room will still include nulls and peaks here and there?

The way I'd do this from my simple knowledge is to use one point of sub placements, cardioid, so "only" room reflections are left and not any "fingers" from L/R setup to add to the room nulls and peaks. Only one source which can create reflections, instead of two, in other words. I'm pretty sure that there's something with the method above which has gone over my head.

[Art Welter]

Interesting. But I don't see how this actually removes the nulls and some peaks? The long averaging time to me sound "only" like it's averaging the entire room, but the room will still include nulls and peaks here and there?

 

Small rooms low frequency behavior is very different than large rooms or outdoors, the room modes dominate the response. As in real estate investment, the three most important things are location, location, and location ;^).

Additional low frequency sound sources (three or more) distributed through the small room can smooth out low frequency modal peaks and dips not by removing them, but by averaging them- each sub location creates it's own set of peaks and dips.

That said, in a small room, the proper location of three subs may not fit the floor plan, the "cure" may be worse than the "problem"- few will care about "a huge 50 - 60 Hz resonance", but they will care about tripping over a sub in the optimum location...

[Dave Garoutte]

Get the mains up high and tilted down onto the audience (off the walls).

Owens Corning has reasonably priced fiberglas sound panels.
Cover them with fire retardant cloth (or not).
Mount them a couple of inches from the walls in various places, especially at any primary reflection surfaces.

[Miguel Dahl]

Small rooms low frequency behavior is very different than large rooms or outdoors, the room modes dominate the response. As in real estate investment, the three most important things are location, location, and location ;^).

Additional low frequency sound sources (three or more) distributed through the small room can smooth out low frequency modal peaks and dips not by removing them, but by averaging them- each sub location creates it's own set of peaks and dips.

That said, in a small room, the proper location of three subs may not fit the floor plan, the "cure" may be worse than the "problem"- few will care about "a huge 50 - 60 Hz resonance", but they will care about tripping over a sub in the optimum location...

Right thanks. So where one sub creates nulls, the other sub(s) might fill those. Makes good sense, thanks.

[Scott Holtzman]

Get the mains up high and tilted down onto the audience (off the walls).

Owens Corning has reasonably priced fiberglas sound panels.
Cover them with fire retardant cloth (or not).
Mount them a couple of inches from the walls in various places, especially at any primary reflection surfaces.

Pipe and drape makes a huge difference, not banjo cloth, real velour drape.  Makes the room look nice too and you can sell more uplights.

[Brian Jojade]

Pipe and drape makes a huge difference, not banjo cloth, real velour drape.  Makes the room look nice too and you can sell more uplights.

https://www.onlineeei.com/umbra_drapes.cfm

This stuff is amazing for sound absorption. It's amazing how it can re-shape the sound of a room!   Price is quite reasonable too.

[Steve-White]

If you can’t do anything to improve the room - more gear & setup in a corner, elevate the tops and focus down onto crowd.

Larger system will exert more control over the room.  Learned this early on with HS dances with DJ systems in cefatoriums & bands in basketball gyms.

[ProSoundWeb Community]